THE FUTURE OF ECOMMERCE
Three different scenarios on the near future of eCommerce
By Jessica Clarén, Fabio Resende, Henrik Rosander and Mikaela Saletti
The Future Is Priceless
Preface In a society where BitTorrent downloading, YouTube TV broadcasting and Skype telecommunication are changing the way we consume culture and communicate we are getting more and more used to have things for free. The future will be priceless because nothing will be paid… well, almost nothing. Ongoing trends show that we are more willing to accept products, services etc, if we get them for free. Well of course, the other way around would be quite odd. The whole “buy now, pay later”-concept is nowadays worldwide spread. The same goes with the mobile phone business - you pick up your phone at the nearest dealer for one () krona and just pay a monthly fee for the subscription. Old news to everyone and not exactly a trend, merely a fact. But what happens when we don’t want to pay for our MacBooks, s (Electrolux dishwasher) or Volvos? In the “real world” we can go to any food store and collect points when we buy our vegetables and milk. We can use these points to buy even more vegetables. We can make the tube journey a bit more enjoyable with today’s Metro in our hands. In the internet world, social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, are financed by ads. A Luxembourg based service called Spotify is trying to become an ad-financed iTunes. The future will take these “pricelessconcepts” even further but in some way we are still going to spend our money. Our Predictions, One Scenario It is , picture yourself on the tube on your way home from a night out. You are bored, the tube is moving so slowly. You pick up your eScreen
(a fictional communication device with no hard disc space), plug in your headphones and start scrolling an online music download community. When you have put your playlist together you click download. A one minute promotion film about a new Volvo model starts. eScreen’s built in eye scanning device sends a confirmation message to the music community saying that you have been watching the commercial and the playlist starts downloading. The rest of the trip feels much more pleasant with music in your ears and no money spent. The next morning you are supposed to do your laundry. Your Electrolux washing machine will not start and you don’t know why. You log in to the company’s service community and explain your problem. You get the answer that there is no use trying to fix it. You order a new one right there in the community and it arrives to your door the day after. The machine does not come with an invoice, the only thing you have to do is to sign a contract saying that you have to buy all your washing powder from a certain manufacturer for at least months. Once again, no money is spent at the scene and you can, although one day late, do your laundry and finally wear that favorite t-shirt again.
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In Years eCommerce Is Just A Ghost
Preface The shortcuts we are trying to create in life are now actually making us spend more time and having more discomfort in things we are not interested in. Today there is a growing dissatisfaction when it comes to using credit cards over the Internet.
People are feeling uncomfortable sharing their social security and credit card numbers over the web. Today there is a big piracy network and millions of ways to get a hand on an enormous list of usable credit cards numbers and shop using someone elses earned money. We buy things without having seen them in real life and cross our fingers that they really, really respond to our expectations and reach our front door. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t and sometimes the company we bought stuff from no longer exists. System crashes down and money disappears out in cyberspace. People today are looking for secure, trustable and timesaving resources to assists their daily routines. There is no time for mistakes and double-checking and there is no time for living a life insecure. E-commerce is also reducing the job opportunities drastically. The consumers buying power is getting poorer, which kills the small business and increasing the gap between small companies and big ones… In the long run a disaster for the business industry. We are quickly killing one of the century’s biggest predicted trend and in years it will just be a ghost. 2012 – We Want The REAL Thing Desperately seeking reliable and safe ways to consume things we have created a world without plastic… when it comes to money at least. We want the real thing. We want to be able to feel and see the products we buy and also see the money we spend to be in control over our own economical balance. We are spending more time in stores now then before convinced this is the way we save most time, interact with people and end up more satisfied. Yesterday has become the future.
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considering the fact that there are billion people online, there are a lot of friends to make. It is also a given that you can search for reviews and suggestions for basically any product online and find a solution for any need you might have on the web. Great minds think alike, and The new thing on this scenario is what is being called Team-buying, if you buy a large quantity of one product, you have a greater bargain power, probably a discount and everyone will get the product at a lower cost. People want to be extraordinary. This need creates a huge trend of uniqueness and customization. Users are not only visiting sites and services. They want to be involved. To participate you can create an artwork for a -shirt, submit it and earn money for your uniqueness. On the other hand, whoever buys these t-shirts have less chance of running into someone with the same one. But what happens when you put uniqueness, crowd power and communities together? In 2012 Imagine one central shopping community with benefits for everyone. For a company there is the large amount of input in only one place. The Company can get ideas for new products, request for improvements in existing products or the need for more specific products. It will be easy to se where the market is heading and also easy to see, find and follow new trends. Basically it is field research and creative ideas almost for free. Almost? Yes. When you see through the consumer’s eyes, they should get revenues proportionally to what they helped on the whole project. Customers would be able to submit new ideas, help to develop them and beta-test it. Actually, they will do the beginning of the whole process in developing a new product, without any cost for the company. Why? This way you as a customer get exactly the product that you want, and you just might get paid for it and the company might just end up selling more products because they actually have created something there is a need for. And of course these user recommendations would
Crowd Sourcing
Preface With the growth of Internet users and online communities today, relationships between “strangers” has become easier to build. You find social networks everywhere today and
be really valuable to other costumers. It’s an expert’s opinion on something that he really believes in. For instance, if a group of people want a blue MacBook ,why should apple not do it? A “customized” version of a product, as a reward for their demand and their help with all the other products. And why should not a big group of people, that are buying a product in bulk, have a discount?